October 27, 2011
Virgin cable broadband service is continuing to grow in popularity according to their latest set of results with most new customers taking broadband with a speed of 30Mb or above.
 Virgin have just released their Q3 2011 results and it shows that they have increased their number of cable broadband customers by 24,300 to their fibre optic cable broadband service but have lost 5,200 customers on their standard DSL service. The customers on Virgins DSL service are those who are not in areas covered by Virgin Medias cable network and so will connect via standard copper broadband connections on BT’s network.
They are also seeing far more new customers taking out super fast broadband options, with 54% of new subscribers taking out broadband with speeds of 30Mb or above, this is compared to a year ago where just 28% were taking 20Mb or higher.
Of Virgin Media’s 4,072,900 cable broadband customers, over 26% are now taking 20Mb or higher broadband form them, this equates to over 1 million customers.
We anticipate allot of Virgin broadband customers who have existing deals may only move to faster broadband packages when they are offered free upgrades to do so. Virgin Media already offer a 50Mb broadband and are rolling out a 100Mb broadband service that is due to be completed during 2012 that will be available to 8 million homes.
Virgin will no doubt eventually change their packages and will not offer their 10Mb broadband service but it is likely to be increased, many customers may only then move to a faster broadband connection when they will not have to pay more for it.
Neil Berkett, the Chief Executive of Virgin Media, said:
“Over a quarter of our entire base now subscribe to speeds of 20Mb or higher and a record number of
customers joined us on superfast broadband speeds during the period with. In TV, we have quadrupled the
number of households using our game-changing TiVo service and customer advocacy for this product is
very strong.
We are increasing the value and mix of our customer base as people add or move to higher tier services
and as new joiners increasingly take up higher value products. This, along with subscriber growth, has
increased revenue and we have had further substantial increases in free cash flow and OCF. Our strong
and sustained financial performance allows us to continue to invest in giving our customers more value and
further differentiating our range of market leading products.“
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October 20, 2011
The first city in the UK & Ireland to be fully upgraded to Fibre broadband is Derry in Northern Ireland.
 Every BT street cabinet in Derry has now been upgraded to FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) and now means that around 40,000 homes and businesses will be able to use the new fibre broadband service. It is probably little co-incidence that Londonderry was high up on BT’s list of places to get fibre broadband fully installed to as BT are one of the main sponsors of Derry for 2013 when they become the UK City of Culture.
FTTC will offer users in Derry up to 40Mb broadband speeds with this likely to increase to up to 80Mb next year when BT increases the available broadband speeds across its fibre network.
Colm O’Neil, the BT Chief Executive in Northern Ireland, told this to the BBC:
“There is different pricing and we have done it on an open access basis.
It is a more expensive product than your standard broadband product but for that, you would potentially get 10-50 times increase in speed.
This city on the north west coast of Ireland, right on the edge of Europe, now has access to speeds and connectivity better than people in Hong Kong, Tokyo, London or New York.
That is an important message for the business community to understand.“Derry first city to get full FTTC coverag
Customers in Derry won’t get an automatic switch0over to the fibre broadband, this is because prices are currently around 30% more expensive than standard broadband connections, but as Mr O’Neil pointed out there are much larger speed increases available for the extra you will be paying.
Despite BT being one of the partners for Derry’s 2013 UK City of Culture this does not mean that the fibre broadband is only available via BT Infinity. Other Broadband providers will be able to offer services through the new fibre network.
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October 5, 2011
BT Broadband are to offer broadband speeds up to 300Mb via it’s FTTP (Fibre To The Premises/Home) and double the speeds of it’s FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) to around 80Mb during 2012.
 BT Openreach have announced today the speed increases that they are planning to roll out it the BT Fibre broadband network which will see the full fibre broadband connections that are available to some see the launch speeds of 110Mb have their available speeds upped to a whopping 300Mb from Spring 2012. Only a relatively small number of premises are connected via the full Fibre broadband offering from BT to be able to have these broadband speeds as a reality, however, the up to 300Mb broadband speeds do represent broadband speeds 3 times faster than the headline 100Mb broadband that Virgin Media currently offer. It would be little surprise though to see or hear of plans from Virgin media to also increase their headline speeds. We already know that they have run trials that allows them to offer speeds of up to 1.5Gb using the same infrastructure that they have already in place (Virgin’s 1.5Gb broadband trial a success).
On top of this BT also announced that they will be able to double the fibre broadband speeds that the majority of the country will receive via their FTTC deployment from 40Mb to 80Mb.
BT are investing £2.5bn in rolling out fibre broadband across the UK, the majority of which is via Fibre To The Cabinet which then requires the standard copper cables from the streetside cabinet to take broadband the remaining distance, by the end of 2015 they hope to have fibre broadband available to around two thirds of the country.
Liv Garfield, the chief executive of BT Openreach, said:
“Today is a significant step in the UK’s broadband journey. These developments will transform broadband speeds across the country and propel the UK up the broadband league tables.
All our fibre products are fit for the future and these developments show that to be the case. As always, we want to go further and faster and so our journey doesn’t end here. We can turn up the dial should there be demand and so we can look to the future with confidence.
No-one is keener than us to extend these super-fast speeds to rural areas and so we will be bidding for public funds to help extend these services even further. The challenge is a tough one but by working with the public sector it is within our reach.”
BT sell their fibre broadband to customers via BT Infinity.
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September 16, 2011
Fibre optic broadband and mobile broadband networks is taking too long according to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
Mr Hunt believes that the UK is in danger of falling behind the rest of Europe by taking too long to get things sorted. He liked the problems to how we dealth with our railways by saying:
“We need to ensure we do not make the same mistake in broadband that we made in railways – building our high-speed network 45 years after the French and 62 years after the Japanese.
PIA (physical infrastructure access) has to be sorted out – and quickly – in a way that allows fair competition with different providers able to invest in our broadband infrastructure.”
The price that BT wants to charge rivals for access to their underground ducts and telephone poles so that they can install or lay their own fibre network are due this month, but it is likely to be a case that the prices will be disputed by BT’s rivals as too high which will then again delay the process of more fibre being laid in the UK. This could then delay the process by up to a year before Ofcom comes in with making a decision.
Currently we have Fujitsu looking to create a £2bn fibre network across the UK but they are after £500m of funds from the government that have been put aside to help roll-out next generation broadband to rural areas.
Along with his thoughts on fixed line fibre broadband Mr Hunt also said how he wanted the mobile phone operators to work together and put aside any competitive differences with the forthcoming 4G spectrum auction so as to not have that delayed any further.
Mobile data is increasing at an astonishing rate and so the 4G network capacity is in great need, it is predicted that by 2015 the volume of mobile data is set to increase 26-fold!
Currently Vodafone and O2 have space spectrum while Three and Everything Everywhere (Orange & T-Mobile are jointly owned) are in desperate need for extra capacity.
Mr Hunt said:
“Sweden completed their auction in 2009, Germany last year, Italy is doing theirs this week and France will finish theirs this year.
Mobile phone operators must put aside competitive differences and work together in their common and our national interest to make this happen.”
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September 12, 2011
BT are trying to create a fibre monopoly according to the commercial boss of TalkTalk.
David Goldie has claimed that BT is trying to regain “the monopoly position that it lost many years ago” and fears that Britain will be left with a second class infrastructure that falls behind that of other developed nations.
BT are investing £2.5 billion in their fibre network (BT Infinity) which will cover two thirds of the UK by 2015. Most of those connected to it will be via FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) which means that from the streetside cabinet the standard copper wires are used for the rest of the distance to the house. Only around 4 million homes will be connected with full fibre broadband (FTTH) Fibre To The Home which can offer even faster speeds.
BT are bidding for £360m worth of government subsidy to help get fibre into rural areas, however the Japanese electronic giant Fujitsu are also after this money and some more so that they can bring their 1Gbit fibre technology to around 5 million homes in rural Britain over the next 5 years. Fujitsu are after £500m to help fund their £2bn project that has already had promises from Virgin Media & TalkTalk to be customers of the network should Fujitsu manage to get the money to do it as it will help create a competitor edge to BT.
Fujitsu however need BT to lower the prices for access and rent of their telephone ducts and poles so that they can install their own fibre. It is thought that Fujitsu want BT to half it’s prices but this could prove a sticking point.
Goldie also said:
“Right now BT knows what its costs are but nobody else does. I look at it from the point of view of the taxpayer and the market and none of them is well served by having a bidding process that favours one party.”
“BT’s is a mother knows best approach. I don’t think they are building the right infrastructure for Britain.”
The Chief Executive of BT Openreach, Olivia Garfield, said:
“BT has provided reciprocal wholesale access to its fibre network from the outset. This allows other operators to piggyback off our investment, while encouraging competition and the take-up of fibre services to thrive. We’ve also volunteered to provide additional forms of wholesale access via our ducts and poles. We expect to announce revised pricing for such access shortly.”
Looking at the issue from BT’s side they will argue that they are already investing £2.5bn into rolling out fibre across the country and also need to make a return on their investment.
It is likely that Ofcom will be the ones who have to come in to help make agreement on both sides.
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August 10, 2011
Virgin Media are to pull out of offering its services in Westminster, London from January next year as it is unable to upgrade the network to deliver it’s next generation broadband and TV services.
 The move comes because Virgin Media said that the infrastructure in place is not able to cope with the superfast 100Mb broadband the company is rolling out.
Although in the main Virgin Media use it’s own network to deliver it’s broadband in the instance of Westminster they actually use BT’s infrastructure and they are unable to upgrade the infrastructure cost effectively enough to be able to cope with the network capabilities that they want to offer.
Due to the lines in place from BT is meant that Virgin would not be able to offer faster broadband speeds than 50Mb in the area.
It is anticipated that around 3,000 people will be affected from Virgin Media withdrawing from Westminster. One of the reasons that Virgin Media can not easily or cost effectively upgrade the network is because around Westminster it is a conservation area which makes it extremely difficult to be able to upgrade the infrastructure.
Virgin Media had the following to say:
“From January 2012, we will no longer be able to provide our existing broadband and analogue TV services to homes in Westminster. We use BT’s infrastructure to deliver services in Westminster and are unable to upgrade the network and deliver our own next generation digital services at a reasonable cost. We are speaking to our customers now to ensure they have plenty of time to decide on an alternative service or provider and will do everything we can to help them make the switch.“
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August 8, 2011
Virgin Media are to extend their fibre optic cable network to a further 100,000 homes by the end of 2011.
Virgin currently cover half of the UK with it’s network and so far during 2011 has seen the network expanded to cover a further 73,000 homes in places such as Derry in Northern Ireland and Staines in West London. The current expansion is going to start in Southampton where Virgin Media plan to double it’s current presence in the city.
Virgin are keen to point out that all homes connected to it’s fibre network are by a high-grade coaxial line unlike BT’s which on the whole is done with the existing copper wire which is inferior for the job than the coaxial line Virgin Media use. Virgin Media’s network has currently cost around £13bn in private investment to get to where it is today.
Jon James, Virgin Media’s executive director of broadband, said:
“By extending our unique fibre optic network to parts of the country previously outside our traditional heartland, we’re ensuring more people can experience the compelling advantages that a superfast connection can bring and in doing so, support the Government’s digital ambitions. Today’s increasingly digital lifestyle requires better broadband and we’ve seen a strong response from the communities we expand into who are crying out for quality services. We’re adding thousands of homes to our network every month as our expansion programme continues and we look for opportunities to give more people access to the fastest broadband and best in home entertainment.”
Virgin have also recently completed trials of the world’s fastest cable broadband which achieved broadband speeds of 1.5Gb, this was done using the existing network infrastructure that Virgin Media have in place and showing that they are able to future proof their network for going forward as and when they need to meet future demands.
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June 21, 2011
The government have announced that the £530 million that was set aside to fund the 2Mb universal broadband is only half the required money to complete the job!
Last week a letter was sent to MPs from the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt that said that the £530 million rural broadband fund will not be enough and that a further £530 million would be needed to achieve the universal 2Mb broadband. This would need to be found either through private investment, local council funding or European funding.
Financial support for any new broadband plans will be done based on need with those bidding for the money required to show how they will offer universal 2Mb speeds and also offer 90% super fast broadband access.
Mr Lucas, the Shadow Business minister had the following things to say:
“Jeremy Hunt is managing down expectations and failing to provide the investment needed to foster growth. Universal access to broadband will not happen for many communities across the country until 2015 – three years later than Labour promised. The provision of quicker super fast broadband links by then will still miss one in 10.
Crucially, the Government is only putting in half of the public money required – meaning local authorities struggling to cope with government cuts in other areas have to find the rest or face being left behind.
The proposals will do nothing to halt the broadband divide across the UK and will act as a brake on business growth across the country just when it is needed most.”
BT are currently investing £2.5 billion in their own fibre broadband network, but this is largely just targeting urban areas where they will receive a better return on their investment, it is the rural areas where the governments money is going to be needed to help get broadband connections made available.
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June 15, 2011
BT’s (www.bt.com) fibre broadband network is to pass 5 million homes by the end of this month and BT have announced a further 66 exchanges that are set to be enabled with FTTC that will cover a further 1 million homes.
BT are undergoing a huge £2.5bn fibre broadband roll-out across the country and have already got it installed in around 5 million UK homes with the roll out not set to slow down. There are already plenty of other exchanges that are earmarked ready for upgrading to fibre and BT have released the names of 66 new exchanges that will also be included. Some of these new exchanges will be upgraded by the end of this year but most will be being done during 2012.
By the end of the roll out BT are aiming to have covered two thirds of UK homes with fibre by 2015, the majority are to be connected via FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) which currently offers broadband speeds up to 40Mb although speeds in future should be able to be increased.
Some other interesting facts about BT’s £2.5bn fibre investment are that they are currently passing around 80,000 new premises per week. By the end of the programme they will have installed 30,000 cabinets, connecting 200,000 distribution points and enabled over 1,000 exchanges which will also mean they will need to lay over 50,000km of fibre!
Those wanting to sign up for fibre broadband can do so with BT at BT Infinity (www.bt.com).
The list of the new exchanges are:
INVERKEITHING
ABERDEEN ASHGROVE
ABERDEEN DENBURN
NAIRN
CUMBERNAULD
GLASGOW SCOTSTOUN
SELLY OAK
SUTTON COLDFIELD
BURTON UPON TRENT
LANGLEY MILL
BRISTOL SOUTH
STROUD
ABERDARE
STAFFORD
EUSTON
HOLBORN
KINGS CROSS
EDGBASTON
ERDINGTON
TILE HILL
NORWICH
DERBY
WILLOWCROFT
MORECAMBE
CHILDWALL
CRESSINGTON PARK
SEFTON PARK
STONEYCROFT
WATERLOO
BROUGHTON, GREATER MANCHESTER
DROYLSDEN
RADCLIFFE
WOODLEY, GREATER MANCHESTER
BRIDLINGTON
BRIGHOUSE
CLECKHEATON
HAREHILLS
HORSFORTH
MELROSEGATE
SKIPTON
FOLKESTONE
HASTINGS
WESTGATE
NEWCASTLE WEST
EASTBOURNE
BRIGHTON KEMPTOWN
ADWICK LE STREET
ARMTHORPE
DONCASTER
DONCASTER NORTH
GREENHILL
INTAKE
LINCOLN
ROSSINGTON
WOODSEATS
WORKSOP
COWLEY
EASTON
BRISTOL REDCLIFFE
BOURNEMOUTH
SOUTHBOURNE
WINTON
WESTBOURNE
LEEK
BRIDGWATER
WELLINGTON
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June 10, 2011
Virgin Media’s 100Mb fibre broadband is now available to over 4 million UK homes with the rollout of this ultrafast broadband set to continue.
Virgin’s fibre optic broadband network covers 13 million UK homes that by mid-2012 should hopefully all be covered by this 100Mb broadband that Virgin are rolling out. Currently over 100 towns across the UK have access to this super fast network from Virgin Media. Their fibre network consists of fibre optic cable to the street-side cabinet and then a coaxial cable form there to the users home to help offer these super fast speeds.
Virgin are able to boast that this 100Mb fibre broadband service can offer broadband speeds up to 16 times faster than the UK average broadband speed (reported by Ofcom in March to be 6.2Mb) and will mean that it could take just 5 seconds to download a full music album, a TV show in 30 seconds or a HD movie in 7 minutes.
Despite the big headline speeds the costs are still extremely competitive form Virgin, with the 100Mb broadband available from Virgin for just £35 per month when taken with a phone line, or for £45 when taken as a stand alone product.
Virgin are not looking to rest on their laurels with this headline package, they are already trialling a 200Mb broadband service and also believe that their network will have the potential to deliver broadband speeds up to a staggering 400Mb in the future.
Virgin Media executive director of broadband, Jon James, said:
“As data consumption rises and consumers grow increasingly reliant on their broadband service, only Virgin Media’s unique network is primed to cater for the UK’s impending data explosion. With four million homes now able to ‘get in the fast lane’ with our 100Mb service, the UK is racing up the broadband league tables and we’re delighted to be playing the leading role in boosting the UK’s digital infrastructure.“
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